The world around us today moves so relentlessly fast – we’re always hurrying here, rushing there, meeting deadlines, answering emails, and thinking about the next hundred things that we need to get done. Change is happening at an unprecedented rate and things that didn’t even exist 5 years ago are now deemed essential. Our society and culture has progressed to a point where we literally don’t wait for anything; it’s all now immediately at our fingertips. Distraction is running rampant and taking over our ability concentrate – bombarded with advertising, news articles, pictures, shows, and endless other options.
With this album I wanted to encourage myself (and the rest of the world) to slow down! Take time to breathe in and out, quiet the mind and appreciate the beauty all around. I imagine Finding Stillness as a soundtrack to friends sitting on a dock in the darkness of a summer night, staring up at the stars in wonder. I picture someone sitting in a traffic jam on the highway, listening to Finding Stillness and actually enjoying that time of waiting. I envision the album playing in yoga studios and helping people to quiet their minds and meditate more deeply. I hear the album as a nighttime soundtrack, helping people to fall asleep when it seems like an impossible task.
The album began with a goal to create the most peaceful, calming ambient cinematic music that I could. I wanted to make great music for people to enjoy while they are working, focusing deeply, meditating, unwinding, sleeping, and so on.
Early on in the album process a friend recommended that I consider using an alternative tuning, which has been cited to help people experience more meditative and relaxing states of body and mind. After some reading and research, I decided to take his suggestion and use the tuning A=432 Hz (rather than A=440 Hz) on the album. In simple terms, this just means that everything is tuned ever so slightly flat compared to our modern tuning standard. There is a lot of literature on this topic and a movement has begun to go back to this tuning commonly used in the past, which is “more in harmony with the universe.” Whether this is true or not, I can’t say for sure, but I decided that if there was ever an album to experiment with the concept, this was it!
As the intent was to create peaceful, calming, ambient cinematic music, naturally I gravitated towards sounds that are soft, warm and spacious.
Some of the ideas that are explored on this album include:
- Slow-moving, swelling strings chords
- Piano with low attack and long sustain
- Paddy, lush synths
- Felt piano sound
- Vinyl warble effect
- Huge reverbs
- Long, long delays
- Soft, vocal layers
- Water and breath textures
With music composition, the fact that there really is no right or wrong answer can be daunting, but also very liberating. I had a lot of fun with this album, exploring new sounds and creating music in a new style to anything that I’ve done in the past. It was definitely a real challenge to compose such slow-moving pieces, but it feels very rewarding to see it all come together as Finding Stillness. I hope you enjoy!
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